“ We need a name for this place.” I said, looking out over the rocky hill to the empty road before us. He pauses for a moment to think before replying.
“ How about Terabithia?” A smile plays across his face. He turns toward me, his blue eyes glint with laughter.
“Isn’t that already a treehouse?” I joke. We made many jokes up there. It was the one place we were free to be ourselves. We spent the next half hour thinking up crazy names-The Tree of a house, square, Nature's palace, and Patrick's chapel. Being young is really the only time your happy. You don't have to worry about enemies and dating, just friends. We were friends.
Years pass. We grow, I being twelve and the boy now eleven. It was now summer and I was almost thirteen. We didn’t talk as much anymore, but in this one moment, when we sat on the surfboard sailing around in the water, it was like we were children again. No awkwardness or real thinking, just having fun together.
“ Remember building the fort? We never named it, we just always called it the fort.” I said. Being with him made me think of all the snowball fights and quiet moments while he was nailing a board in the floor.
“ Maybe The Fort should be it’s name.” I smiled. He had never really wanted to name it. I think he felt it was too final, like it was over. He jumped into the water and swam away.
School had started and I was thirteen. He still being eleven was in 6th grade while I was in 8th. That year his parents asked me to babysit him and his siblings. That was the end. We had named the fort. Broken our connection. We no longer were two kids perfectly comfortable hanging out, being friends. We were just neighbors now, nothing special. He didn't say hi to me at school or call wanting to have a snowball fight. Sometimes I wonder if he even really considered me a friend. I may have just been the neighbor he swam with and built a treehouse with.
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